2011 Yamaha WaveRunner® VX R

YAMAHA VXR TESTED IN THE SEA AT BOTH LOW AND SPRING TIDE

The VXR looks good, but nothing out of the ordinary. The foot-wells could be better sculptured and angled to suite your feet, they still don’t fell 100%. The handle bars should be adjustable, but it easy to change that ang gets after market kits. The front compartment is too small and far from wat...er tight. This is a real pain as all your safety equipment should go in there but it has to be placed in water proof containers – why can’t they get it right! The seat cover is also not water tight one quick capsize and you see and after punching through a good few sets of waves – you will have some sea water in the engine compartment. My last grip is the inner of the hull is not flat making for some great cavities and indentions for sea water and sea sand to sit and rust you motor and components. The drain plugs are not on the lowest of back extremities making it really hard to get all the water out of the motor- most skis are like this, but surely by now come one can see this a area for improving or will the engineers rather add a page on how to not use you craft in the sea and if you get water in the engine compartment to rush it off to the agent….
With that past us –the ski is a no nonsense power blaster that is nibble fast and full of energy ready to jump at the pull of your finger. It is like having a loaded shotgun in your hand, but you the buck shot. Fire it straight and away you go. It handles well in the S’ and turns well once you managed to move your weight around. With a full tank the front does plough a bit into the waves coming back to shore. I sat well back and this helped.
I also noted some tendency to nose dive slightly off centre on a small jump when about 20 to 30 ‘degrees over the swells. So how does this fair to any thing I ever piloted that’s of the show room flow? There is nothing that matches this craft -nothing. For hard core punch, speed at low revs and agility due to it light weight it’s in its own league. If you looking for a strong long term unit this is it. No silly bells and whistles though, just pure adrenaline mixed with a lot of control. I would choose this craft to take out in spring tide over any other craft on the market.
Pst I made two small modes. The first one was to add sound proof high density foam that is flame proof and fire retardant on the inner parts of the engine compartment covering ¾ of the leanth and about ¾ down. I used silver heat resistant tape over the entire area on the side of the exhaust. The reason I did this was twofold – to reduce the noise and vibrations, as a WOT it’s a bit tinny or whiney and the other to add to the buoyancy even though small it still adds.)
The other mod was to get some neon orange graphics adds to the front and sides – as this craft in the water is invisible- if it a over cast day and the water is filled with foam you will not see a silver gray jet ski coming at you a 50 miles a hour.
If you want fun real fun buy this- if you want a lounger get something else.
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Great Ski

This wave runner is heads and tails above the rest I had two seadoo rxp 215 and they were fast but stayed in the shop although the VXR is not supercharged it ran right with the rxps and is more comfortable and lighter and the gas usage is ten times what the seadoo was. This is top of the line Yamah...a Read Full Review